


daydream in blue

by crocodile



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Murder Mystery, in which Geralt is still a witcher and Jaskier is a mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodile/pseuds/crocodile
Summary: Geralt means to go back to his phone, back to researching and formulating a plan to uncover the specifics of the serial murders Vesemir has so kindly thrown his way. He has no interest in another encounter with this kid who’s already seen him unloading a bag of blood-soaked clothes in the middle of the night. But then the guitarist takes a breath that rumbles through the microphone, andsings.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 55
Kudos: 230
Collections: THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH





	1. a prima vista

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i'm sure you can tell, i'm new to the Witcher and am currently playing through Wild Hunt while waiting for my library to get me book copies. i felt i just needed to write something about Geralt so here we are! i'm really trying to work on sensory details, but the next chapter will have more character substance. i haven't grasped Jaskier's personality at all yet, so i'm sure this will be an experimental series as i fumble around for a path. 
> 
> Jaskier's outfit, since i went down a Pinterest rabbit-hole: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548242954621631329/
> 
> Daydream in Blue, the actual song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhB6Lb7_kN8&list=RDBhB6Lb7_kN8&start_radio=1&t=186
> 
> (and final note - Dogshead Tavern is based on a place where i used to live, not on anything in the series ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Two a.m. settles strangely on Novigrad, the cloudy sky tinged orange and dusky grey. Neon lights flicker throughout the streets in promise of late-night warmth and cheap alcohol and food, and the wind pulls drunken chatter and music into every alley. 

From his perch on top of an empty washing machine, Jaskier watches the _open_ sign of the laundromat flash slowly, reversed through the window. The whine of fluorescent bulbs blends in with the tumbling of the dryer across from him, a droning, soothing rhythm that threatens to lull him into slumber. He sighs and flips blindly through the papers in his hand. Picking up the styrofoam cup beside him, he takes a final swig of coffee long gone cold and considers the ancient espresso machine at the front of the laundromat.

"Too early or too late for more?" Jaskier sets the cup back down and draws his legs onto the washer until he can sit cross-legged. The dryer thuds companionably. "Suppose it doesn't matter when I'm still awake, anyway." Papers in his lap, he pulls his cellphone from the pocket of his hoodie and plugs in headphones before settling back against the stucco wall with closed eyes. 

He tries to listen calmly, to pay attention to the theory behind the music, but he thinks the artificial brightness of the night grows the restless itch in his palms. Huffing loudly, Jaskier opens his eyes and stares down at his papers. Sheets of music, each one covered in blue pen marks and creased heavily, meet his gaze in silence. He flips to the second page and frowns as he hums the notes. Closing his eyes again, he sings beneath the sound of the music playing on his phone, feeling his way through the melody more than hearing it. 

The sound of a metal door slamming nearly startles him onto the floor. Pulling the headphones from his ears, he looks down the row of washers with wide eyes at a man who most certainly was not here five minutes ago. Squatting before a washer with a mesh sack of clothes, the man's tight black Henly stretches around his biceps as he tosses linens into the tub. His hair is long and white, shaved on the sides and pulled back into a messy tie, but the hard lines of his jaw and cheekbones look too young to match. The man glances at him for a fleeting moment, and Jaskier swears his eyes shine gold beneath the pale lights. "Don't stop on my account." 

And _oh_ , but his voice is a low, growling thing that winds its way around Jaskier's ribcage, something from an old movie, like smoke in a hazy jazz bar. Jaskier stares openly at the flex of the man's chest and the broad line of his shoulders and wonders if he's actually having a pleasant wet-dream. "I didn't even hear you come in. Thought I was the only poor soul in Novigrad washing underwear in the moonlight." He speaks too fast, too much, and the stranger tilts his head at him for a moment before focusing back on his bag. "Good gods, though, you look like you walked in here right off the cover of a romance novel."

The stranger does not smile, but even at this angle Jaskier can see his eyebrows quirk, and he receives a thoughtful hum for his efforts. Just as he opens his mouth to make another sleep-deprived quip, his dryer beeps jarringly from across the row. He sets aside the sheet music and hops down to kneel before the dryer with his basket. He tries to grab a piece of clothing, nearly gets burned, and rocks back on his heels, glaring at the dryer tub. 

Trying to maintain an air of patience and _not_ ramble at his silent companion while waiting for his clothes to cool, Jaskier begins to sings softly to himself. Not the song from the sheet music - homework, even sung, is never fun in the wee hours of the morning - but something nameless and half-formed. A melody he hasn’t yet put to words, one of the many little currents of noise running just beneath his skin in seek of release. 

He catches movement from the corner of his eye and glances over in time to see the stranger turning back to his own machine. Grinning crookedly, Jaskier scoots himself around to watch the man. “You don’t have to be shy, you know.” His eyes drift down the man’s body, down the muscles in his back coiled like they’re barely constrained, to his scuffed black boots and the bag of clothes -

The bag of clothes that the man is currently pulling stained shirts from. Stains that are dark and visibly thick, flaking beneath the man’s fingers. Stains that look not unlike blood, if Jaskier’s experience from movies is to be believed. 

Jaskier nods once to himself. Glances back at his own clothes in the dryer tub and takes out a single lukewarm sweater. Cradles it in his hands. Then, spilling from his lips - “Dude, what the _fuck_ do you do for a living?”

The stranger sighs heavily and tosses his last piece of clothing into the washer. “Animal control.”

Jaskier squints at him before using the dryer door to unsteadily pull himself upright. A tingling rushes through his arms and lower legs that he distantly recognizes as adrenaline. “By animal control, do you mean “butchering stray dogs and rolling in their blood”?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, mouth moving faster than he can clearly think. “That is _way_ too much blood. You threw, like, six bloody shirts in there. Should I call the cops? I should probably call the cops -”

The man stands too, empty bag in hand, and Jaskier blanches as he draws up to his full height. He isn’t _that_ much taller than Jaskier, but he’s got linebacker shoulders with thighs that could probably crush a watermelon, and his waist is trim in a way that promises solid muscle beneath his tight shirt, and Jaskier buries those thoughts as the stranger crowds him against the dryer. Jaskier plasters his ass to the metal and watches, mesmerized and shaking _just_ a little, as the man inclines his head. His eyes are molten up close, pure gold in a hue Jaskier didn’t know was humanly possible, and his nostrils flare. A small, tinny voice in the back of Jaskier's mind thinks _t_ _his must be what it's like to face down a brown bear._ Then the man scoffs and steps away, heading for the door. “You won’t. Don’t touch my shit.”

Jaskier stares, open-mouthed and speechless, as the wild-eyed stranger leaves through the front door of the laundromat. The rasp of his voice lingers in the goosebumps on Jaskier’s arms and in the traitorous burning of his skin. 

The stranger is right. Jaskier does not call the cops. He walks home with his basket of his warm clothes to his chest, eying every dark corner for the glint of animal eyes and singing wordlessly in a minor key.

* * *

Geralt pauses before the wooden doors of the Dogshead Tavern. It’s sunny outside with the first breath of fall chill, and the sidewalks are bustling with students from nearby Oxenfurt, drawn outside in roving packs by the temperate weather. From inside the tavern he can hear music and laughter, can smell the cloying aroma of too many people in a small space. But this place came recommended for low prices and passable food, and students tend to ask fewer questions than other humans, caught up in early-twenties hormones and depression as they are. 

Exhaling heavily, Geralt pushes open the door and steps inside. The tavern looks more like a cafe, with warm wooden walls and a menagerie of mismatched furniture in rustic colours. He notes real oil lamps burning on the well-worn tables and his lip curls in the ghost of a smile. In one corner, in front of an electric fireplace, a band plays demurely. He receives only a few curious glances from the tables before their owners returns to their laptops and books. 

Studying the menu hung on chalkboards above the main counter, Geralt approaches the barista. A young woman with thin hair dyed pink, she smiles brightly from behind the register. Her black apron is covered in pins that Geralt recognizes none of. “Welcome to the Dogshead! What can I get ya today?”

“Hm.” Geralt fishes in the pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “Large black coffee, hot. And -” he glances at the glass display of bakery goods - “the pretzel bread with cheese.” 

“Five fifty.” He hands her a ten and she scribbles his order onto a cup before handing him back his change. “Be up in just a few!”

He nods and sets a course to an empty two-person table tucked in the back corner of the tavern. The maroon cushions are old but soft, and he angles the chair to place his back firmly into the join of the walls. From this vantage point close to the kitchen, the smell of baked goods and coffee and warm milk masks the cheap perfume drifting from the residents of the nearest table. Sighing in relief, he pulls out his cellphone and begins to scroll. 

Seven texts from restricted numbers. Two voicemails from a saved number he has no interest in calling back. He brings up his email and is greeted with an unread message, subject line: “RE: Novigrad.” 

_Vesemir_. He opens the chain and reads, brow furrowing. More details, all of them confusing, none of them elucidating. Another body turned up on the streets of a major city with pieces and organs removed, seemingly at random. Eleven corpses over the span of a year, of different ages and gender and occupation, with the only noticeable tie being the surgical precision of the wounds.

“Your food’s ready!”

Geralt tilts his head and grunts at the pink-haired barista as she sets down his coffee and bread on a little platter before him. He raises the ceramic mug to his lips, letting the earthy smell of the coffee wash over him before taking a sip. It’s a bitter blend, but rich, with an undertone not unlike hazelnut. Pleasant and calming. As he reaches for the bread, he lets his attention drift for the first time to the band across the room, where a piano player, a bassist, and two guitarists crowd around the false fireplace. His eyes narrow on the guitarist in the middle. 

_Fuck._

He glares across the room at a shock of dark curls and eyes so light-blue they’re nearly grey. The guitarist’s full lips twist as he sings, voice weaving delicately throughout the cafe. Geralt remembers the timbre of his singing resonating against the metal of the laundromat, remembers his nervous eyes staring up at him, remembers the softness of his low cheekbones and the dusky freckles across his face. _Well, at least he never called the cops._

The guitarist doesn’t look up until the song ends and a smattering of polite applause breaks out across the tavern. His teeth flash as he grins brilliantly, and Geralt sees his gaze drifting toward him. Scowling, Geralt looks resolutely down at the table and takes a bite out of his pretzel bread.

The band breaks for food and drink, and Geralt finds himself pacified somewhat by the bread - soft and chewy with a center of melted cheddar cheese, complemented by coarse grains of sea salt on the crust. He exhales slowly and looks back to his phone, but he can’t focus, especially not when the guitarist starts speaking into his microphone.

“Thanks for being a great crowd this afternoon!” Geralt glances up reluctantly. The guitarist holds his gaze for only a moment, but Geralt knows he’s been made. “While my compatriots take a short break, I’m going to sing something a bit - a bit different.”

Geralt means to go back to his phone, back to researching and formulating a plan to uncover the specifics of the serial murders Vesemir has so kindly thrown his way. He has no interest in another encounter with this kid who’s already seen him unloading a bag of blood-soaked clothes in the middle of the night. But then the guitarist takes a breath that rumbles through the microphone, and _sings_.

Geralt’s not a musician. He can’t quite pin down what’s different. The best he can think is that the kid’s voice is _more_ , in every way - smoother, thicker, haunting. Mulled wine and honey dripping down Geralt’s throat. The tavern goes quiet in a slow ripple, even though not all eyes turn to watch him, almost as though the sound of his voice hits them below a conscious level. If there are words, Geralt does not hear them, head cocked and all his senses trained on the guitarist. 

The melody rises, and the kid’s voice fills with a tone of longing so despairing Geralt feels the ache in his skin, and he swears he can _see_ the notes glittering iridescent in the sunlight streaming through the windows, like a thousand tiny panes of glass are hung from the rafters. The sound settles around him, brushing around his shoulders, and he watches as every person in the tavern turns to look at the guitarist as though waking from a shared slumber. He's swimming through a giant bowl of molasses, sugar crystallizing on his tongue when he goes to take a breath, and he wonders sedately if his blood is turning to thick syrup.

Then it passes. Time catches up and the shimmer in the room fades. His voice is still sweet and a little desperate, but the air clears just a bit, like mushroom spores being dispersed by the wind. Geralt watches, transfixed, until the song trails off into fervent applause. 

The guitarist stands and gives an exaggerated bow. “Thank you! We’ll be back in five!” He bounds away to the counter, and Geralt chugs his coffee, waiting for the inevitable.

He listens to the guitarist approach on soft footsteps. He takes the seat across from Geralt, thrumming with energy as he fiddles with the straw of his elderberry smoothie. Geralt breathes slowly, smelling the cologne on the guitarist’s wrists. Clove and pepper, jasmine and vanilla, a faint note of grapefruit. Lavender soap beneath, stress hormones from performing. Sweet and lingering, like a half-forgotten dream.

“Jaskier. Professionally known as Dandelion.” They blink at each other when the silence drags. The guitarist - _Jaskier_ \- raises his eyebrows. “This is the part where you tell me your name, so that we can meet each other properly like respectable human beings who did _not_ share a bloody night in a laundromat.”

“Hm.” Geralt leans back in his chair and folds his arms, inspecting Jaskier. He wears a dark blue shirt covered in daisies with bright red centers, and his pants are a matching garish red. Geralt tries to hate it but finds it’s fitting for this creature known as Jaskier, who is currently gnawing on his straw and tapping fingers restlessly against the hardwood tabletop. “Geralt.”

Jaskier perks up with a wide smile. “There we go! We’re on the verge of having a normal conversation. Where are you from, _Geralt_? What brings you to Novigrad?” Geralt’s name rolls thick off his tongue, like he’s taking the time to taste it.

Geralt drinks the remnants of his coffee down to the dregs. “Rivia. I’m here for work.”

Lifting his chin, Jaskier smirks. “So you’re…what, a traveling animal control officer? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of _that_ profession before.”

“…Shit.” Geralt rubs at his eyes with one hand. “I mean. It’s not wrong.”

“Are all traveling animal control officers built like a brick shithouse?”

Geralt snorts despite himself, head lilting to the side. “Comes with the territory.” He studies the grey flecks in Jaskier’s eyes, the movement of his lips around the straw. Jaskier’s fingers are long and thin where they dance atop the table and the rhythm echoes in Geralt’s head. 

A contemplative look passes over Jaskier’s face, wrinkling the corners of his eyes, and for a second Geralt sees the calculation in his shifting grey irises, the curious tic of his jaw. He’s bristling with static electricity that Geralt guesses can only be grounded through questions. Then there’s a “ _Jaskier! Time!_ ” shouted across the tavern, and Jaskier smiles brightly as he looks to his band-mates. He jumps up and leans across the table, shooting Geralt a final conspiratorial smirk. 

“Until next time, Geralt of Rivia, Controller of Animals.” He dances away across the room, smoothie bouncing precariously in his grip, and Geralt shakes his head dumbly. 

As the band slips into their next set, Geralt pulls up Vesemir’s contact on his phone and makes his exit quietly from the tavern. When he steps out into the brisk air, lavender and jasmine still on his tongue, a single thought sits heavily on his mind.

Whoever and whatever this Jaskier is trying to be, he is not quite human. 


	2. hemiola

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then the hand draws back and drags something out of his throat, out through his sinuses, out through his nose. He gags and coughs and draws in a cold, shaking breath. The human waits patiently as he lands on his hands knees, panting, before looking up with a crooked and trembling smile. 
> 
> And he screams.

Geralt is crouched at the feet of a corpse when his phone starts ringing. 

“Shit.” The ring-tone is shrill and metallic - the obnoxious noise he’s assigned to the most challenging contacts in his phone. Contacts who should _not_ go to voicemail, even when the medical examiner gives him a look through her mask from where she’s hunched over the victim’s head. “Sorry. Gotta take this.”

Geralt stands with crackling knees and tugs off one of his latex gloves before pulling out his phone. When he sees the flashing name he grimaces, looks skyward, and makes his way back out of the scene under the yellow tape. “Hello.”

“Geralt, it’s DC Foltest.” Geralt nods absently out at the street, listening past Foltest’s cigar-rough voice to the familiar background noise of the Sodden police station - the HAM radio that lives beside Foltest’s ancient computer, a cacophony of phones, muffled but raised voices. “I got an update for ya.”

Turning, Geralt lets his eyes drift over the crime scene he just vacated. An unfortunate placement - the victim dumped on the steps to a bubbling fountain in the middle of Oxenfurt’s fraternity row, forcing the police to cordon off the street and the open area between two of the giant houses. A few unlucky officers have the unenviable task of keeping drunk and-or sleep-deprived frat boys in their own yards, but even at 04:00 news travels fast on campus, and more students are stumbling out of their townhouses from blocks away to see the carnage. Geralt sighs and focuses back on Foltest. “An update? On the toothless girl?”

“Mmm.” Geralt winces as Foltest chews audibly and spits what Geralt instinctively knows is a sunflower seed. “Lab results came back on the blood in her lungs and gut.”

“Well?”

“Blood in her lungs was her. Probably inhaled it from screaming when the asshole pulled out her teeth.” 

Another chew-and-spit. Geralt stares at the ring of examiners around the stiff twenty feet away. “But the blood in her stomach is someone else’s.”

Foltest makes an agreeable grunt. “Chief ME said something else weird - don’t think you heard while you still in town since we thought it was the responding coroner’s doing.” Chew. Spit. Geralt swallows down a growl. “A piece of her liver was sliced away. Like it had been biopsied before we got to it.”

“Really.” Geralt breathes deeply, the early morning air thick with dew and adrenaline and stress. _Tampering with organs, like the couple in Velen with sliced lungs_. 

The static-filled voices in the Sodden station begin to escalate. “Shit.” Foltest spits twice. “I need to deal with these kids. Fucking recruits.”

“Keep me posted.” Geralt hangs up just as Foltest begins to rumble and strides back over to the sidewalk in front of the victim. “Menge.”

His voice is quiet but carries over the hushed conversation of the lead medical examiner and Oxenfurt DS Menge. They both turn to look at him, the ME in her HAZMAT gear and Menge covering his mouth with his shirt sleeve. “What is it, agent?”

“Were his lymph nodes removed?”

Menge tosses his head like he bit into a particularly sour lemon, but the ME nods quite enthusiastically for someone burning the midnight oil in the company of a lightly-mutilated body. “We won’t know until a full examination, but the incisions on the left side of the body align with the lymphatic system, and the lymph nodes on the right side at the neck -” the ME kneels back down to gently maneuver the victim, “- the armpit, and the groin are significantly swollen.” 

“How did you know that? And don’t say you guessed.” Menge jabs an index finger in the air towards Geralt. 

“Hmm.” Geralt gives the medical examiner and turns his back to the scene, waving his phone in the air. “Call me when the tests start.”

He ignores the sputtering of the sergeant and makes his way down the street towards his Jeep. He schools his face into a snarl that he doesn’t really feel, but it parts the ocean of doe-eyed coeds in Tri-Aard sweaters. Pausing at the door of the Jeep, he opens his email chain with Vesemir and composes a new message.

Geralt looks out down the softly-sloping street, where it curves into distant houses, where the pink fingers of dawn have just begun to dance over the traditional red tile roofs of Oxenfurt. The dew shimmers like frost on the dark leaves of the trees lining the road, promising a warm day in Saovine. He sighs and presses send. 

* * *

_Update:_

_Sodden vic was a vampire. Perp is hunting nonhumans and hybrids in hiding. Removing body parts for testing._

_V/r,_  
 _Agent Geralt Wulf  
_ _Chief, Dol Angra Division_  
 _Independent Investigation Bureau_

* * *

He is choking. He is always choking here, in this dream, in this place beyond places. He chokes and his vision blackens on the edges and he never dies.

Shadows with hair of silk and saffron dance around him as he kneels and grabs at his throat with fingers molasses-slow. Their laughter chimes, metal and wood, and their feet stomp to a distant rhythm he can feel but not hear. He does not dare join in, because he knows if he starts dancing he will stop choking, and to stop choking he must first die.

Beneath his grip something moves. A parasite in his throat, rippling just beneath his skin. He tries to vomit but there’s no room in his esophagus, and stomach acid drips into his lungs when he swallows it down. 

A familiar burn - still unbearable. He is always choking here, and he collapses onto his side as his legs go numb. 

The shadows squeal delightedly, just close enough to human to make his skin crawl when a few voices break into porcine snorts. They are hungry today. He can see their teeth shine like oyster shells as they circle closer, and the faster shadows grab with deep purple nails at his clothes.

He kicks at one and it dissolves in a burst of petals and yowling. It will be back soon, furious this time as well as starving. If he could sigh he would. They will eat him tonight, and they will leave his neck for last so he cannot die.

A familiar ripping and tearing - still unbearable. He wonders if they will leave his eyes this time for him to watch.

The shadows land on him like wind more than weight, and he doesn’t notice at first when they begin to ripple away from like waves back into the trees. They wail hungrily from the darkness within the treeline, and he struggles back to his knees. A pressure descends from deep within the woods, a storm approaching, and his eardrums pop as _something_ approaches.

Well. He is still choking to death forever, but _this_ is new.

The _something_ is human. He knows this instinctively by the distortion in the air, television static from another room, a crackling electricity he has never felt in the place beyond places. He cannot see them, can only feel where the pressure hovers outside the clearing. The howling of the shadows crescendos, a hundred neon-yellow lights of noise flashing through his head, but then the pressure-in-human-form speaks.

“Oh, shut up already, you useless _unseelie_.”

The shadows chitter into a surprised silence. He can still hear them rustling against tree trunks, but the human is stepping into the sunlight and he cannot look anywhere else.

The human wears heavy dark robes that shimmer like fish-scales in the sun - like a living creature is wrapped around them, shifting with them as they step silently on dark boots. A white ceramic mask covers their face and leather gloves the hand they extend toward him. 

“Now tell me, how did a soft little creature like you end up here?” They cackle and their voices spin through the air - a breathy old man, a disinterested young woman, a group of children, all at once. “Oh wait, I forgot - you can’t speak.”

He stares, surely bug-eyed, as the human crouches before him and tips his chin up with a gloved finger to inspect his throat. “Someone here did a number on you.” They click their tongue and sigh. “You new _hybrids_ are all the same. Flaunting your magic before men, wildly ignorant of the rules of monsters.” 

They drag their fingers from his chin to his throat. He tries to pull them off but he’s so weak, he’s choking, he’s sinking heavy into the earth. The human wraps their gloves hand around his neck. “I’m going to make you a deal you can’t refuse. I’m going to remove this land’s hold on your body, and you’re going to tell me your name.”

He nods desperately, and the hand clamps down on his throat. It’s crushing. It’s worse than choking on nothing, the feeling of his windpipe against the bones of the human’s hand, and his body flails.

Then the hand draws back and drags _something_ out of his throat, out through his sinuses, out through his nose. He gags and coughs and draws in a cold, shaking breath. The human waits patiently as he lands on his hands knees, panting, before he looks up with a crooked and trembling smile. 

And he screams.

The sound takes every precious ounce of air back out of his body, but in the place beyond places he’s always choking, anyway, and the forest shatters. He sees the wind that leaves his mouth in pulses, sees the dirt and leaves kick up in a twister of his own making, sees the human tumble backward, clutching at their ears. The shadows wail like coyotes and rush from the trees, stumbling over each other to tear their sharp little nails into the heavy folds of the human’s robes. 

A ragged cough cuts him off, his throat burning, and Jaskier watches the human struggle to toss the shadows off of themself as he’s pulled out of the dream and back into his bed in his little flat in Novigrad. 

* * *

In a quiet culdesac on the outskirts of Oxenfurt, the early morning air shudders before ripping open in a burst of white flame. The human steps through the portal with shredded robes, mask crooked and smeared with dirt. They snap their fingers, snuffing out the flames instantly, and hiss behind their mask at the shadow-creature that managed to slide through the portal still clinging to their clothes. They shake their leg to disengage the shadow and, before it can scurry away behind the nearby garbage bin, stomp heavily onto its head.

The shadow whines for just a moment before it melts into a pile of lilac petals. The human grinds the petals into the asphalt with their boot. 

"Just what I needed," they grumble down at the remains of the shadow. "A monster too stupid to know he's not human, but just smart enough to not give his name to faeries." They lift one gloved hand to their mask and sniff, before shrugging. "At least he's local."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a been a few weeks but we're finally moving along! this story is going places i didn't expect so i just hope you all enjoy it! i split this chapter in two so i'll post chapter 3 pretty soon (and a few of the questions from this chapter are answered in the next so please hold on). 
> 
> i didn't plan for this to lean so heavily into the murder-mystery thing that's going on now, but that's where we are haha. i don't know how forensics or police or human anatomy work but this is fantasy so i hope you all will let my inaccuracies slide (or tell me if something feels really off) >_>
> 
> Saovine = Samhain, one of the seasons in the Witcher universe  
> V/r = very respectfully, military email jargon  
> random NPC names are usually just pulled from quests in Witcher 3


End file.
